Blizzcon 2013 Recap
We have included a few points from each of the Warlords of Draenor panels, but there is a lot more information in each post.

New Character Models

The old Dwarf male has 1,160 polygons and was mirrored on both sides. The new model is 7,821 polygons and has higher texture resolutions. The face doesn't have to be symmetrical anymore.

They went 956 to 5,408 polygons on the Gnomes. 130 to 196 bones. Texture resolution was 2 to 5x higher depending on the area of the body.

Dwarf Female, Tauren Male, and Female Troll models are all being worked on right now.

All of the original races, Draenei, and Blood Elves will be getting new models for Warlords.

Worgen and Goblin won't be getting new models right away. The team will take a look at those models after all of the other ones are done.

Facial hair is animated using bones.

Capes are now animated using bones to flow more naturally.

Gnome female pigtails are now animated.

Enchanted Fey Dragon Mount
The Enchanted Fey Dragon will be a store mount. It will be sold alone or in a combo pack with another pet for the Make a Wish Foundation.

Q&A Recap
These are some of the more important points from the Q&As today.

Warlords Release Date

Another MoP patch would delay WoD, so Patch 5.5 isn't going to happen. The entire team is working on WoD right now, so any more MoP content would slow down development.

Q: "Typically after you announce something it is another year, but we are at Patch 5.4 now. What content do you have planned for between now and then?" A: "Any content we do now will delay the expansion by the same amount of time it took us to make that content. We are completely focused on making the next expansion and will try to deliver that as soon as we can, hopefully on a shorter cycle than players are imagining, but you never know, we will have to see."

Q: "Typically that would be in the Winter of next year. Does that mean it is a goal to bring it in to Summer or Spring?" A: "Well certainly the goal is before that, but we'll see, it is very hard for us to predict."

Dungeons and Raids

The new Flex loot model will work similar to how Master Loot does today, but the number of drops will scale based on the number of people eligible for loot in the group. The personal loot system won't be removed, you will just have to opt in to it.

The number of drops will scale well with the number of players, as each additional player gives you a higher chance to get another drop, up to where it is guaranteed. This ensures that are no odd breakpoints that will restrict raid sizes.

The game has a Raid Browser that no one uses, so in WoD it will be expanded to support killing world bosses, doing achievements, finishing Shadowmourne, or any other activity. This will support cross realm groups and encourage people to do PuGs rather than completely random matchmaking.

Quests and Leveling

You can technically buy as many level 90s as you want if you buy another copy of the game, get the level 90, and then transfer the character to your main account each time. The team has talked about putting a level 90 purchase option in the store, but it hasn't been decided yet.

There will be a legendary questline again in WoD. The questline will be a little bit more custom to your class to help with the lack of class quests. Class quests are very resource intensive, so at most we might see one or two in WoD. (Maybe Shaman)

Leveling in WoD will be a fun and fast paced romp through the zones. The team is backing off the idea that leveling should be a long grind.

New Character Models

The team hasn't decided how new character models will be released yet. It could have all of the completed race at launch, or they could be added every patch.

There will be no free re-customization for characters after new character models. (See this blue post for more information, a final determination hasn't yet been made.)

Misc

There aren't any plans for another WoW Annual Pass. It was a good idea at the time because getting Diablo 3 free made it a good deal, but it isn't a good for the the D3 expansion.

Recruit a Friend will be back next week.

The tertiary stats may be limited to a certain slot, like speed only on boots. It will be rare enough that by the time you can farm them progression races will be over. They shouldn't have a big impact on progression races.

Racial balance will be tuned again in WoD, trying to narrow the gap. Goblin and Worgen have better balanced racials than many other races right now.

Warcraft Movie

Duncan Jones has played the Warcraft games, World of Warcraft, and even Lost Vikings. He originally played Ultima Online.

Jones liked the script, but it was very Alliance centric. He thought it would be better to make it about both sides and the original Warcraft.

There is concept art for Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge, Stormwind

The story is Orcs vs Humans. Lothar and Durotan.

The style of this war movie will be similar to Gladiator, gritty.

The first movie has to be done right, then they can think about doing more.

The majority of the movie takes place in the Eastern Kingdoms.

The lore of this time doesn't have many female characters, but the producers are pushing for including some female characters.

We will see a preview sometime next year, maybe at Blizzcon.

The Lord of the Rings movies inspired Jones to want to do this movie. He wants to match or beat them at making an awesome movie.

The movie will be PG13, but the PG13 rating is shifting. You can get away with a lot more now and still be PG13.

Level 100 Talents
Keep in mind these talents will likely change significantly before release and are not final.

A powerful disease that deals 100 damage per stack every 3 sec for 30 sec. Each time it deals damage, it gains 1 stack, and jumps to another nearby enemy if possible. Cannot be spread by Pestilence.

Replaces Blood Plague.

Defile

1 Unholy, 30 yd range

Instant, 30 sec cooldown

Defiles the ground targeted by the Death Knight, causing 100 Shadow damage every 1 sec for 10 sec. Each time Defile deals damage, it increases in area and damage by 5%. This growth can occur a maximum of 3 times per second.

Replaces Death and Decay.

Breath of Sindragosa

15 Runic Power, plus 15 per sec

Instant, 1 min cooldown

Continuously deals 2000 Shadowfrost damage every 1 sec to enemies in a cone in front of you. This effect lasts until canceled or Runic Power is exhausted.

Conjures a focusing crystal at the target location, which is attackable by only the Mage. The crystal will absorb the power of all damage deal to it. After 10 sec, it will release bursts of energy, dealing damage equal to 130% of the damage it took, split between all enemies within 8 yards, over 6 sec.

Falling Stars

Arcane (Arcane Orb)

Instant, 15 sec cooldown

Launches an Arcane Orb forward from the Mage's position, traveling up to 40 yards, dealing 1000 Arcane damage to enemies it passes through. Grants the Mage an Arcane Charge every time it deals damage.

Fire (Meteor)

1000 Mana, 40 yd range

Instant, 45 sec cooldown

Calls down a meteor which lands at the target location after 3 sec, dealing 10000 Fire damage, split evenly between all targets within 8 yards. Also burns the ground, dealing an additional 2000 Fire damage over 10 sec to enemies in the area.

Frost (Comet Storm)

1000 Mana, 40 yd range

Instant, 30 sec cooldown

Calls down a series of 7 icy comets on and around the target, each of which does 2000 damage, split between all enemies within 5 yards of its impact point.

When you critically strike with an autoattack, you gain an additional combo point on your target.

Shadow Reflection

20 yd range

Instant, 2 min cooldown

Summon a shadow of yourself on the target that will watch you and memorize your ability usage for the next 8 sec. After this time, it will mimic the memorized abilities on tis target over the next 8 sec.

Death from Above

50 Energy

Instant, 20 sec cooldown

Requires One-Handed Melee Weapon

Finishing move that consumes combo points on the target to empower your weapons with shadow energy and perform a devastating two-part attack.

You whirl around, dealing Shadow damage to all enemies within 8 yards, then leap into the air and slice into your target on the way back down, dealing additional Shadow damage.

While your Lightning Shield is active, lightning will strike a random enemy within 40 yards that you are in combat with every 3.00 sec for 2000 Nature damage.

Restoration (Condensation Totem)

100 Mana

Instant

Summons a Water Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 1 min that collects 25% of all overhealing, and grants it to the Shaman as spell power toward their next Healing Wave, Healing Surge, Greater Healing Wave, Chain Heal, or Riptide.

Storm Elemental Totem

1022 Mana

Instant, 5 min cooldown

Summons an Air Totem with 6000 health at the feet of the caster, calling forth a Greater Storm Elemental to hurl gusts of winds on the caster's enemies. Each gust of wind does damage to the enemy, and then heals all allies within 15% yards for 100% of the damage dealt, split evenly. Lasts until cancelled.

Reach of the Elements

Elemental & Enhancement (Spew Lava)

40 yd range

Instant, 45 sec cooldown

Empowers your current Fire totem with the power of lava, causing it to spew globs of lava at a random enemy within 40 yards every 1.00 sec for 15 sec. Each glob of lava deals 2000 Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards.

Each raid difficulty has its own lockout. They will be loot based lockouts, allowing you to kill the same boss multiple times per week and only get loot once a week.

There will be more optional content and less quest hubs that have to be unlocked by another chain first, along with more dynamic events and treasures found in the world.

There will be few or no daily quests at level 100! It will be a mix of the story in 5.1 and Timeless Isle in 5.4.

Hit, Expertise, Dodge, Parry, Reforging, all gone!

The primary stats on armor will now change based on your spec. Plate drops and it will have whatever stats your class needs, no more Intellect plate! No more PvP Priest Healing set and PvP Priest DPS set, just a Priest set.

While they claimed no work has been done, they never said they're not doing them...quite the opposite in fact... It was at the damn Q & A that they said it... they've also said they might do some models at launch with others 'staggered' through patches(which honestly, is the better idea, as long as they start getting previews of the others up around that time).

Every post you make makes me think you haven't even read the announcements...

I updated my post... with links to what has already been claimed here at MMO-Champion. Blizzard is now pretty desperate cause ppl are now starting to read between the lines of what they have not been saying at BLizzcon. Alot of extra PR will come out with "we like to..." quotes. Cause right now... thats all that WOW fans can hold on to for a long cold winter of nothingness on live paid for servers.

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Originally Posted by Ilfayt

Edit: I see you edited your original post, which now makes this make even less sense. You're practically saying what the guy you were quoting said...:P

No. He said that all races would get updated models "for" WOD (acting like it would be at launch)

Fact is that there might be updates for the two TBC races at some point during the next expansion (in some of the patches) witch spans about 2 years.

It's a reveal, that's just about all we've ever had to go on at Blizzcons. I'm fully expecting things will turn out differently. My point is there is more weight to their promises with a massive influx of staff(which is not 'cheapskate bliz' at all). The PR 'matches' the effort and resources they're putting into it.

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Originally Posted by Duster505

I updated my post... with links to what has already been claimed here at MMO-Champion. Blizzard is now pretty desperate cause ppl are now starting to read between the lines of what they have not been saying at BLizzcon. Alot of extra PR will come out with "we like to..." quotes. Cause right now... thats all that WOW fans can hold on to for a long cold winter of nothingness on live paid for servers.

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No. He said that all races would get updated models "for" WOD (acting like it would be at launch)

Fact is that there might be updates for the two TBC races at some point during the next expansion (in some of the patches) witch spans about 2 years.

That is not the same thing.

He didn't say or hint at launch, and they didn't say launch. "WoD" can easily be meant to encompass the whole expansion, patches and all. Plus you also said "Worgen and Goblin will not get updated" even though that's exactly what they said, they'll just be low priority

It's a reveal, that's just about all we've ever had to go on at Blizzcons. I'm fully expecting things will turn out differently. My point is there is more weight to their promises with a massive influx of staff(which is not 'cheapskate bliz' at all). The PR 'matches' the effort and resources they're putting into it.

The PR is not matching anything atm. They have just announched the most underwelming Expansion for World of Warcraft with zero new race, zero new class, minimal class changes (maybe one extra ability at most), reworked outland (even tho they claim its done from scratch) and least amount of Dungeons of ANY expansion.

And here is another fact. TBC launched with more dungeons and stronger raid tiers including more bosses than this so called "biggest dev team of WOW to date" is doing. That is how weak this expansion is. It is not even matching the original Outland expansion in terms of core features of the game.

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Originally Posted by Ilfayt

It's a reveal, that's just about all we've ever had to go on at Blizzcons. I'm fully expecting things will turn out differently. My point is there is more weight to their promises with a massive influx of staff(which is not 'cheapskate bliz' at all). The PR 'matches' the effort and resources they're putting into it.

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He didn't say or hint at launch, and they didn't say launch. "WoD" can easily be meant to encompass the whole expansion, patches and all. Plus you also said "Worgen and Goblin will not get updated" even though that's exactly what they said, they'll just be low priority

He is talking the same PR as BLizzard atm... hinting at things that we all know are not going to happen. So lets stick to the real quotes.. not some that are made up to sound as promising as possible.

Do you know how many Dungeons TBC had at launch for players to enjoy while leveling ?

The PR is not matching anything atm. They have just announched them most underwelming Expansion for World of Warcraft with zero new race, zero new class, minimal class changes (maybe one extra ability at most), reworked outland (even tho they claim its done from scratch) and least amount of Dungeons of ANY expansion.

And here is another fact. TBC launched with more dungeons and stronger raid tiers including more bosses than this so called "biggest dev team of WOW to date". That is how weak this expansion is.

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He is talking the same PR as BLizzard atm... hinting at things that we all know are not going to happen. So lets stick to the real quotes.. not some that are made up to sound as promising as possible.

For the last fucking time, they are not 'reworked zones'. Even from the little we have, we know that won't be true...take one look at Shadowmoon Valley and tell me that's the 'same zone' from TBC. Hellfire is going to be a polar opposite, if they somehow manage to 'rework' that, they deserve even more credit.... Frostfire Ridge didn't even exist(literally, the landmass is gone in 'Outland'). Gorgrond and Nagrand(2/7) are the only zones that are looking to be anything like their counterparts. I've already linked to screenshots, the faction zone vids and more enough... Go to the WoD page and see for yourself.

As far as class changes, did you miss the 'level bonuses' they showed? 10 new passives, perks, and changes far outweighs the '1 new ability, 1-2 passives' that every class had, especially since every class already has some 'dead moves' that I'd rather see have new life than make new moves(example, Mind Spike for S-Priests). MoP leveling got really old, really quick(85-90 in most specs didn't add anything 'special', for example, my warlock, I got the new teleport spell, which doesn't really see much use til you hit max level, and Pandemic at max level, so mostly what I was seeing when I dinged was 'congratulations, you get a new dungeon').

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Originally Posted by Duster505

The PR is not matching anything atm. They have just announched the most underwelming Expansion for World of Warcraft with zero new race, zero new class, minimal class changes (maybe one extra ability at most), reworked outland (even tho they claim its done from scratch) and least amount of Dungeons of ANY expansion.

And here is another fact. TBC launched with more dungeons and stronger raid tiers including more bosses than this so called "biggest dev team of WOW to date" is doing. That is how weak this expansion is. It is not even matching the original Outland expansion in terms of core features of the game.

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He is talking the same PR as BLizzard atm... hinting at things that we all know are not going to happen. So lets stick to the real quotes.. not some that are made up to sound as promising as possible.

Do you know how many Dungeons TBC had at launch for players to enjoy while leveling ?

16

Do you know how many we will get during 90- 100 levels now?

4

Um, you're numbers are off... at launch in TBC, We had the 2 hellfire dungeons as leveling(Shattered Halls was 'max level'), Underbog and Slave Pens(Steamvaults was tuned for max levels, despite letting you in early), 3 of the 4 auchenai dungeons(Shadow Labs again, not tuned for pre-70's), and the CoT dungeons. The Whole of TK's 5 mans were only accessible with flying, unless you had a warlock summon you...not exactly 'open for business'. So, that leaves us with 9, almost half the number you stated. Still more than WoD, I'll give you that(hell, I'd say TBC had 7 cause I'd almost debate with you that Sethekk Halls/Black morass were intended to be max level, but I bet you'd deny it :P)... but definitely not '4x as much'.

Edit:Anyways, I'm done here. My point is, all we have is PR, yes, but that's all we've EVER HAD till Beta of a particular expansion, yes, even TBC. Maybe if come Beta they've failed to hit some of those promises(and I'm certain a few of them will fall through, as always), I'll start agreeing on some points, but right now, there's no reason to, except sheer 'denial' of every point they make.

I'm EAGER to see how you will force them to comply, oh mighty internet tough guy

Pitchforks are already being lit. Lots of threads here, on the official forums on both US and EU, on various other fan sites I go to. Once beta starts there will be more, once casual people log in after PAYING for an expansion and PAYING their subscription and seeing they're ALLOWED to pay for a customization cause they don't like the new face and skin blizz decided for them they're going to freak. When they learn other mmo's updated their models and gave free re-customizations to their customers people are going to freak.

I remember I wanted to try Rift a few months ago. Was talking to my buddy about how I made a character and I'm already level 20. He says he has one that's level 40 and will come over to my server. I ask him how much that costs and he says, "costs?" and he's on my server. FOR FREE. Other games don't nickle and dime and gouge their customers as much as this greedy company does, considering how much more a month they make it's sickening.

For the last fucking time, they are not 'reworked zones'. Even from the little we have, we know that won't be true...take one look at Shadowmoon Valley and tell me that's the 'same zone' from TBC. Hellfire is going to be a polar opposite, if they somehow manage to 'rework' that, they deserve even more credit.... Frostfire Ridge didn't even exist(literally, the landmass is gone in 'Outland'). Gorgrond and Nagrand(2/7) are the only zones that are looking to be anything like their counterparts. I've already linked to screenshots, the faction zone vids and more enough... Go to the WoD page and see for yourself.

As far as class changes, did you miss the 'level bonuses' they showed? 10 new passives, perks, and changes far outweighs the '1 new ability, 1-2 passives' that every class had, especially since every class already has some 'dead moves' that I'd rather see have new life than make new moves(example, Mind Spike for S-Priests). MoP leveling got really old, really quick(85-90 in most specs didn't add anything 'special', for example, my warlock, I got the new teleport spell, which doesn't really see much use til you hit max level, and Pandemic at max level, so mostly what I was seeing when I dinged was 'congratulations, you get a new dungeon').

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Um, you're numbers are off... at launch in TBC, We had the 2 hellfire dungeons as leveling(Shattered Halls was 'max level'), Underbog and Slave Pens(Steamvaults was tuned for max levels, despite letting you in early), 3 of the 4 auchenai dungeons(Shadow Labs again, not tuned for pre-70's), and the CoT dungeons. The Whole of TK's 5 mans were only accessible with flying, unless you had a warlock summon you...not exactly 'open for business'. So, that leaves us with 9, almost half the number you stated. Still more than WoD, I'll give you that(hell, I'd say TBC had 7 cause I'd almost debate with you that Sethekk Halls/Black morass were intended to be max level, but I bet you'd deny it :P)... but definitely not '4x as much'.

Yes I saw the class "perks" that Im 100% certain of will not make it through. Adding permanent perks on certain abilities will not make it through any more than did "path of the titans".

And in terms of MOP.. that was 5 levels... and yes ... its true... MOP leveling was underwhelming... and that was only 5 lvls.

I ran most of those instances like 50 times each. I know how many they were. Some were added later... something that was NOT done during MOP and ppl should NOT count on as "we like to" PR talk at this point. Facts are all we have now...

And the fact when it comes to core feature of the game as in 5 man dungeons.. is that everything is telling us that the encounter team in terms of dungeons and raids is SMALLER now... than it was ... even 6 years ago. And 4 dungeons while leveling from 90-100 tells us that BLizzard is not making that team any bigger for WOD. They are just doing the same as they did in MOP... cut the numbers of bosses for 5 mans and turn them into raid bosses.

Not very impressed.
No grouping tools for normal/heroic outside of 3rd party mods/websites. NOTHING to help small guilds keep going or get off the ground. STILL having the mystic (heroic 2.0) realm limited!(why god why). They went with stat squish... Say goodbye to year to year growth and hello to wrath numbers. Love the game but they offered nothing for the fresh new player and the struggling small guild and/or realm people while kicking current 10man heroic (mythic) players square in the nuts.
And pvp? Why they do this. Still no solo q option for rbgs and arena (gotta use a 3rd party mod or jump through hoops to get keep a team going). Tons of new world pvp crap, that no one will do much of unless it has rbg/arena level rewards. Cause its boring as hell when you outnumber the enemy, nearly impossible to have fun when the enemy outnumbers you, laggy/unstable with large numbers and NEVER balanced in numbers.

Reading through these comments I have to think that there are several paid Blizzard employees posting here to garner support for this pathetic excuse for an expansion. I see no reason what-so-ever that this should even cost additional money.

Reading through these comments I have to think that there are several paid Blizzard employees posting here to garner support for this pathetic excuse for an expansion. I see no reason what-so-ever that this should even cost additional money.

It is basically just a patch that we have to pay for. No new races, no new classes, the only thing expansion like is we get to grind out 10 levels. But then they only gave us 3 new dungeons for those 10 levels. If it doesn't come out very soon, within 5 months then they'll be kissing a lot of subscriptions good bye. Nobody is going to wait 9+ months for this little content.

Haven't played WoW in nearly a year and I'm not seeing anything from Blizzcon that makes me want to come back. Staggered release for character models and without a reset so I can make my new face look how I want. If you hate your new look, tough shit, deal with it. Seriously? A 5th raid difficulty....because 4 wasn't enough. Derp. Also the whole following Garrosh to Outland, even if it is a new map, it's still dumb. Was really expecting the return of Sargeras and the Burning Legion, not more Garrosh. Bleh. Garrosh is done, he lost. What I see here isn't near enough to talk me into $150+ a year to play this game.

Seems to me that Blizzard has forgotten what made their games so compelling to begin with. Blizzard made very deep, extremely complex games that were accessible because of unbelievably good UIs and continuously and incrementally rewarding gameplay. It did NOT MATTER that some raid content was inaccessible to many people because there was so much to do and rewarding gameplay for every type of player. Now they have discarded that for only having end game content, and a blitz through a mindlessly streamline leveling process. They have clearly lost their way and will probably never get it back.

Seems to me that this expansion is only a large content patch designed to be a movie tie in in a very flawed attempt to attract new users.

Anyone else get the feeling that they've given up on growth and are buckling in for a slow decline while they use wow money to build other IP? Seems like f2p is their next big money maker, with an extremely modest bet on esport viability with both.

A couple of you really hit the nail on the head with a few things, especially the movie tie-in angle. It feels cheap somehow. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, and it should be fun. MoP so far was my least favorite expansion, but questing and story were well done, I just didn't care for the eastern theme. Just a personal preference. I enjoyed the Wrathion quest chain immensely. Timeless Isle was meh. Felt like filler content. Thunder isle was much better.

The expansion should look nice graphically, but there's really no excuse on the player models not being ready 100% at launch. If they dangle the player model carrot for 5 patches to try to keep people hanging on, it will be sickening.

I cancelled until they get the realm population issues fixed. I REFUSE to pay to have to transfer my characters when the only server I got to choose was in 2005. It's not my fault people left the faction I was playing on the servers I've been on. I've taken free transfers every chance I get, but it just gets worse. Cross realm zoning in a party was a good step in the right direction, but the game thrives on economy. I think the the profession changes are indicative that they know things may get sparse in the future, and they possibly don't want the economy to play such a huge role in gearing up. A lot of people on these fringe servers can't get the gems/enchants they need without maxing out 2 or 3 characters. I'm willing to be most will quit before paying to transfer, or putting in loads of time so they can have gems/enchants available.

Firstly, no matter what jaded ideas anyone gets, it will take a very long time lose even half of the 7.6 Million subscribers that play WoW. WoW also isn't going to pull anything like the dreaded NGE for SWG, as experience is now their guide for further game development.

An expansion like this isn't a cash grab in prep for a fallout. The "jump the shark" expansion would involve fighting Sargeras. If anything, it seems like WoW is going back into it's roots of innovating ideas from other games; and cutting them to fit their design philosophy.

I lovingly called this "The EQ2/Guild Wars Expansion" to my wife... halfheartedly of course.

They talked a lot about "kits" at the con, which shows they're admitting WoW's aging. I believe that their intention is to get ready to pump out more expansions faster after WoD; more than likely geared towards individual racial issues. It's not uncommon for a game studio to use culture kits to quickly make themed expansion content... it's just been uncommon in WoW till now.

I really don't think they'd use such poor judgement as to wait a year to release WoD. Especially after dropping the bombshell that there will be no 5.5 release.

Finally, the whole "Jaded WoW Player" mindset is a common cliche now in the MMO world. I feel a lot of the "WoW is doomed to a slow death starting now" talk comes from a lack of WoW players enjoying other MMO's as well.